A brand new vinyl only full length from aQ beloved ambient improvised free rock explorers Thuja. The core group is all present, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Steven R. Smith and Rob Reger, joined for these sessions by Thuja satellite members: Greg Bianchini, Keith Evans, Bryan DeRoo and former aQ mailorder mistress Christine Boepple. Collected from various live performances, these tracks find Thuja setting up in various venues around the Bay Area, and transforming each location, at least briefly, into a forest glade, or a darkened wood, or a fog shrouded seashore, using traditional instruments as well as sticks and stones and other found objects to conjure up ghostlike soundscapes , each track, every performance, a slow burning sprawl of humid and humming minimalism.
Almost the entirety of the A side is taken up by an epic stretch of alchemical minimalism, a muted series of washed out melodies, of gentle scrapes and distant shimmers, various notes and chords expressed in long streaks, the guitar lines unfurling lazily, the band eventually coalesce into a glistening high end crescendo, suddenly reminding us of Sunroof! with their upper register ur-drone skree, but here that skree is more muted and muddied, a mournful keening, before the band elves back into a more minimal moonlit crawl. Disembodied slowed down riffs are draped over whispered whirs, while the band lurk in the shadows, letting tiny bits of light spill out, creating barely there sonic patterns, and dusty dreamlike song skeletons.
The B side is even more understated, each track a brief soundscape, exploring dark dusty corners, shuffling through a blanket of dead leaves, the band barely there at all. Almost like they set up their instruments and just stood there, letting the wind and the wildlife create the sounds. When the music does materialize, and take more solid form, the guitars weave themselves into delicate little tangles, drifting over deep resonant swells, all around sounds betray the environment, but become inexorable parts of the organic sound being created, snippets of conversation, voices, footsteps, alongside subtle bits of percussive thump, warbly distant melodies, a deep dark ambience, a gorgeously subtle sound that manages to be quietly propulsive even as it seems to hover motionless.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
Here's the cd version of volume two of My Cat Is An Alien's split series with artists they like. This time that Italian drone duo shares disc space with a band we really like as well, our pals Thuja. A good match for sure. Thuja's track "The Magma Is The Brother Of The Stone" (great title guys!) is an 18 minute improv that segues almost imperceptably into MCIAA's equally lengthy "When The Earth Whispered Your Name". Both are narcotic and nocturnal-sounding, with Thuja's seeming closer to the Earth while MCIAA's drones down from space. Highly recommended to fans of either band!!
You like that so-called stoner rock? You like them Queens of the Stone Age? Then pay attention: Norway's Thulsa Doom boys are back with a follow-up to their fine "The Seats Are Soft But the Helmet Is Way Too Tight" full-length. The five songs on this not-quite twenty minute cdep are perhaps even better than those on their undeniably rockin' debut (though with less harmonica). We're talking quality stuff here: heavy, catchy, kick-ass songs with fat, fuzzy guitar sounds and odd, gotta-think-about-'em lyrics (try "Cities After Cheese" for a song title/concept). You can't throw a stone anywhere in Scandinavia without hitting a stoner rock band, but please don't throw it at these guys, 'cause they're freakin' good! We're reminded of Thin Lizzy (a bit 'cause of singer Papa Doom's vocal style), the kick-out-the-jams garage rock of the Hellacopters and their ilk, and, we'll stress again, the BIG GUITARS and pop smarts of the aforementioned Queens Of The Stone Age (and Kyuss too of course). Unlike that new Queens album, though (as good as it is) this is all killer, no filler, no messing around with in-jokes and so forth -- indeed, sometimes eps are better than full albums 'cause you can really get into each song, and they're all pretty great on this lil' disc. Destined for big things, if the world was fair (which it ain't, but we'll still keep rootin' for Thulsa Doom).
Yet more Scandinavian stoners getting high and rocking out. Groovy, fuzzy stoner rock, complete with wailing harmonica (!) and a vocalist that sounds quite a bit like Phil Lynott. The guitar sound is all Kyuss, warm and HUGE, with Queen style harmony guitars and Grand Funk vocals. And then there's that harmonica...
Fans of Thin Lizzy, Zen Guerilla, Kyuss and the like will eat this up!
Have to say I was quite entertained by the fact that this chunk of raging emo-core shares its title with an album by the splendid pretty pop combo Aislers Set. Needless to say, this is something very different. This is only the second full length from these DC boys who've been around since 1995. Crankin' up their fire power to ten, they don't let up for the full length of this album which
Really well done kitchen table electronica from local guy. What's with the odd name, though? Manages to combine exciting, fast paced breakbeats with a lush layer of slowly drawn-out melody. If you like the soundclip below, you'll enjoy the whole album.
Stoner rockin' heaviness from Down Under. Pretty great, especially on jammin' and getting jammier instrumental juggernauts like "Etherel Blue". Definitely in the upper echelon of the new wave of stoner rock (along with Ufomammut, Astrosoniq, and The Want) of
Stoner rawk alert! It wasn't easy, but we finally got a few import copies of the new release from Austrialia's Thumlock, sent over on the slow boat from Down Under. Maybe it's their fantastic/silly/crappy album artwork, or mystic/cryptic/ridiculous titles, but we dig this band. To be sure, their approach to the stoner rock genre is, well, kinda generic -- yet varied & interesting & well done. Urgent rather than laid back, Thumlock are a bit more 'metal' than most, with a flair for majestic riffs and Thin Lizzy licks tossed in among the Queens of the Stone Age style grungy desert rock and Monster Magnetic wah wah psych guitar jams.
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This self-produced cd-r features smooth mix of rare groove and deep house from this stalwart San Francisco DJ.
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This self-produced cd-r features smooth mix of latin grooves, deep house, and funky drum & bass from this stalwart San Francisco DJ.
You might remember a pretty cool, Nick Salomon curated comp called White Lace And Strange, from a few years back, full of heavy vintage fuzz psych from the USA, circa 1968-1972. Well that comp's title came from Thunder And Roses' contribution, also the lead-off track on the band's lone 1969 album, now reissued. The song was also later covered by Nirvana in 1987 (you'll find it on the rarities box With The Lights Out). So it's their most famous song, but the entire record is pretty cool too.
The Philly-based Thunder And Roses were a sorta poppy, spacey, proto-metal power trio, obviously inspired by the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream. They even cover Hendrix's "Red House" here... so it's definitely blues rock all right. But heavy psychedelic blues rock, the kind we like. There's a flower-power sixties vibe, naturally, and they're not quite so heavy as Blue Cheer or Sir Lord Baltimore, but fans of those bands should still dig this!
Plus, the head scratching "fire hydrant with angel wings" cover painting is kind of awesome.
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Yet another blackened recommendation direct from the unholy oracle, otherwise known as AQ comrade in evil, Wrest of black metal horde Leviathan:
When asked to review a couple of discs for Aquarius, I was psyched to find they were among my favorites cds of '03. "The Burning Deed of Deceit" is this Polish artist's third official release and it is definitely Satanic Blackened Metal at its sharpest. Thunderbolt is created almost solely by Paimon, with a session drummer and keyboardist. Paimon, definitely from the school of Snorre Ruch (mastermind behind Thorns and father of the Norse guitar attack), writes hymns with ferocity not felt since early Immortal or old Satyricon. Noteworthy also is the fantastic drum playing and natural drum sound. Levitating blasts, odd time signitures and abrupt tempo changes make up this six song epic. Highlights include "Die With Your Religion" for its hauntingly dischordant keyboard and "The One Who Sleeps", which trudges through the fields of the righteous, the spell broken only by a melancholy acoustic interlude. The soundtrack to a blood-ritual in the name of the one with horns. Hail Satan!!!
This is all about dirty, sassy, and sweaty fun! This duo from Toronto excels in banging club jammers that exist in the same charged booty shakin' atmosphere as folks like Peaches, CSS, L' Trim, Bonde De Role, Yo Majesty, etc. But there is something about front-woman Isis's commanding presence and sizzling charisma that really makes this one stick out amongst the electro club pack. It's exactly the kind of record you would want blasting from a dance club's stereo, and it would sound just as good coming on after Justice as it would Missy Elliott. With summer around the corner we are searching for our summer party jams to fill the void that records from folks like Yelle provided last year, and after several listens we're pretty convinced that Thunderheist is going to be our soundtrack to shakin' it, for quite a while!
Rachael Kozak (aka Hecate) presents her own version of the Digital Hardcore girl-groups, in particular the super stupid Cobra Killer project from Gina of EC8OR and Annika from Shizuo. For the Thunderinas, Kozak assumes the sexually explicit, grease covered pseudonym Bloody Knuckles alongside her equally antagonist partners Carolina Fastburner and Audrey Anaconda for a sloppy album of hot-rod samples, groovy DHR breaks, and bombastic jump-up, scream 'n' shout, punk-as-fuck vocals, though this is not nearly as noisy as their DHR sisters.
For any one who's been keeping track, this is record number four from the mad genius behind the damaged brilliance of Xynfonica, Shevalreq and Gluttony. The master of the most important modern musical instrument, THE GUITAR SYNTH. Whose records are either twisted inspiration, or fractured insanity, most likely both. Music to some folks ears, utter garbage to others'. You know where we stand. And if you don't, read on...
The concept behind not just this record, but everything this guy does, is to take a guitar synth and jam out, with the sound of the guitar synth all weirdly atonal and creepy. Then wrap those creepy atonal jams around some high falutin' concept, Vikings, the Roman Empire or something like that, and then the piece de resistance, add some intense growling metal vocals over the top. Sounds insane, and it IS insane, but it's so twisted that we just can't get enough. And we can't be alone since the mysterious man behind the guitar synth keeps churning them out!
Xynfonica was meant to be orchestral, Shevalreq was 'world music', and Gluttony was 'jazz', this time the sound is based on Asian and Eastern instruments, not the real instruments obviously, but the settings on the guitar synth, so stuff like kotos and sitars, but synthesized! The lyrical concept this time around is based on the travels of a group of Danes, as they brave the Arctic Ocean to reach the kingdom of Jotunheim. There are plenty of lyrics, and liner notes so you can understand what's going on, as well as pictures of the synthesized instruments, a guitar, a sitar, lutes. The cover is pretty fantastic too, a giant gold statue, and some Viking archers, squaring off atop big Indian drums! Yep. We're not sure we get it either, but we love it.
So what does it sound like? Well actually, it sounds almost exactly like the other discs. Which is not a bad thing at all. More more more, we always want more. If anything it's even more insane and twisted sounding. The chords warble, the notes are uneven, the tempos shift and stutter, crunchy distorted electric guitars collide with synthesized sitars, long stretches of warped wah wah, the vocals raspy and demonic, the sound often morphing mid phrase into some murky orchestral sprawl, or some tangled freaked out synthpsychdrone weirdness.
Way recommended, essential for keepers of the first three keys (Xynfonica, Shevelreq, Gluttony) obviously, but equally essential for lovers of the weird and the obscure, the freaky and the fucked.
We could think up better ways to market this record that what Table Of The Elements came up with. They *could* have shrouded this album in mystery, saying: "Truly hypnotic, vangarde turntablism and cut-up audio collage by unknown sound artist Ted Conrad, circa 1973- '74 -- predating Christian Marclay and Boyd Rice!" Or they could have said what is probably the truth: "Legendary minimalist Tony Conrad smoked a lot of pot in the early '70s while stuck in Ohio. Instead of making films or composing abrasive minimalist music, he made recordings of his young son playing around his toy Fisher-Price record player. Indeed, he probably was playing with the turntable himself."
But Table Of The Elements chose instead to present this album with such hyperbole as: "Is it fair to argue that a precocious Ted [Conrad -- Tony's at the time infant son], the once and future Thuunderboy, anticipated in these excursions of the early '70s everything from the rise of turntablism and hip-hop to the creative strategies of such disparate entertainers and / or conceptualists as Fatboy Slim, Christian Marclay, and that erstwhile Savior of Pop (circa 1997), Beck? Or, rather does it affirm some unerringly democratic quality inherent in the very act of scratching and spinning, that a toddler could create hypnotic loops and decontruct pop banalities into perversely humorous after-the-fact commentaries on the star-making machinery?"
Arghhhh. So lame. Rant aside, the Thuunderboy recordings -- regardless of whether it was Tony Conrad or the toddler Ted Conrad making these sounds -- is a pretty amazing album of locked grooves worn into Donny Osmond 45s, played back at the wrong speed. If anything, it should be appreciated for what it is, a humble peek into the lives of Tony Conrad -- the minimalist trying his hand at fatherhood -- and young Ted Conrad -- the two year old kid who put up with a dad who kept playing with all of his toys.
Finally here! We have been waitin' for this reissue to arrive for eons (well, at least Cup has!), and it's so well worth the wait. This is the original soundtrack to George Lucas' 1971 feature length debut THX-1138, a chilling, near-future dystopic cult fave shot right here in SF. Although Lucas decided to handle this film's restoration for the dvd release in much the same unfortunate way that he did for Star Wars - namely, by adding numerous quite significant (often intrusive and questionably necessary) CGI 'enhancements' and revisions - Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack has aged quite gracefully, and this release even includes some numbers he composed for the film that did not make the final cut. We love Schifrin's work, and this is no exception. It is considerably different from his many other sountracks (Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Enter The Dragon), but then again this film is considerably different. Imaginative, haunting and incredibly effective, his score perfectly complements Walter Murch's innovative ahead-of-the-curve sound design (it would be great to have a cd of that!), and together they play a vital role in each scene and in the film's overall impact. Starkly contrasted with the film's predominantly icily sterile visuals, it's an ever-shifting aural kaleidoscope of grand symphonic strings, menacing drones, blats of brass, imposing choral assemblies, bursts of Latin jazz, early synthesizers and electronic explorations, solitary woodwinds, percussive African rhythms, and avant garde sound collage... topped with a deliriously giddy "Be Happy" sing-song jingle cherry on top. Richly atmospheric, melodious and dissonant, and deceptively unsettling. Highly recommended... and not just for film score buffs! Limited pressing of 3000, but it has been out for a while, so get it while you can!
No, this is not the soundtrack to the George Lucas film THX1138; this is a project called THX113 which presumably is a quartet of unknown characters who issued a private pressing of nocturnally painted quasi-songs and tape-loop driven abstractions back in 1980. There's no documentation of the existence of the private pressing in question, nor are any citations that we can find of the members of THX113 doing anything hither or yon. So, we'll state our skepticism and agnosticism as to the plausibility of this actually being of the era. Eh, there are worse problems to have. If we are to believe the backstory, then we could easily imagine this quartet developing in the late '70s from an electronic music class at some sodden community college in the cornfields of Iowa where the earnest and bearded professor proclaimed Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain as the pinnacle of achievement for tape music with Morton Subotnik's Silver Apples On The Moon holding the same title in terms of pure electronic composition. The advent of punk, new wave, and no wave may have been irrelevant to this imagined professor; but to the young men of THX113, the Promethean spark of DIY recording and raw expressionism was already lit inside their collective heads. Armed with a primitive knowledge of electronics, tape loop techniques, and even a small ability to play guitar and bass, THX113 crafted nine untitled tracks of ghostly loops for jangled 12-string guitar, sonar-pulse synth tones, sunbleached electronics that allude to an Ash Ra Tempel album degraded over multiple generations of home copies upon copies, and even some of the hand-percussion hippie-dom of Woo. A weird one for sure! Limited to 100 copies!!!!
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Originally recorded in 1991 and never actually released, Thy Grief Eternal is the band that would later become Eternal and then of course later still, the mighty stoner sludge behemoth Electric Wizard. But back in '91, Jus Osborn and his merry band of metalheads soundee completely different, as it was 1991, and in the UK, Thy Grief Eternal sounds like they would have been right at home on Earache, alongside Carcass, Napalm Death, Godflesh and the like. Pounding industrial sludge doom, with grunted gutteral death metal style vocals, pounding relentless drumming and BIG RIFFS, very sludgy and crusty, much more akin to the ultra slow, monochromatic dirge of funeral doom, as they had yet to discover the groove that would play such a crucial part in their later sound.
Two lengthy tracks. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
This record is impossible to figure out. When we first threw it on we thought 'oh great, another slow sludgy doom sort of band' but then almost as quickly as we thought that, we stopped, because suddenly it sounded nothing like that, it totally blossomed, opening up into this completey abstract chunk of big booming drum, downtuned fuzz guitar free jazz post rock psychedelic groove doom. Or something. One minute they'll be splattering random drum figures and the guitars will be scraping and squirming and freaking out, then suddenly the drums will just click, and a MASSIVE sixties psych groove will unfold as the guitar goes total Hendrix apeshit and spins wild-man-blues/notes-bending-all-over-the-place/druggy and deliriously buzzy and blown out LEADS into dizzying webs of searing white hot fuzz. Which of course results in glorious full on Hawkwind meets Comets On Fire meets LSD-march, postrock krautrock psychrock freerock Ur-jams. Endlessy throbbing and pulsing and completely mesmerizing. Some tracks twist and wriggle and writhe into sweat soaked, blood drenched full on rock blow outs, while others settle into impossibly static exercises in tension and drone, almost like a much free-er version of Dutch hypno-metal gods Gore.
Underneath it all the bass wanders and burbles sounding fretless or underwater, as if it was some sentient creature that just happened to be in the same room as the guitar and drums, and every once in a while just happens to fall in along side whatever crazed groove is being flung wildly about. The drums are as much the focus as the guitar, they sound huge, like the band is set up in an airplane hangar, sloppy and all over the place but tight and ferocious too. The whole while cascading sheets of distorted guitars swoon and sway and hug the chaotic drumming before once again exploding into some fuzzed out Hendrixian speaker blowing meltdown.
And for those of you who don't know who Tia Carrera is (ummm... Wayne's World?), do yourself a favor and next time you stay home sick from work, discover the oh so guilty pleasure that is the TV show Relic Hunter!
Hopefully you already are familiar with this Texas heavy psych band with the not-so-heavy name. We've reviewed a couple of their releases before - most recently, a way-cool 7" of all Lungfish covers, and previously, their massive November Session (we still have a handful of that cd in stock, so go read our review of it and snatch one up!).
THIS new disc comes to us via the Small Stone label, who've been getting much props from us lately (for the likes of Obiat, Iota, Sons Of Otis, and Los Natas) though we already knew the Tia Carrera was gonna be good. And it is. Freeform jammin' blown out psychedelic wahwah'd guitar wailin' freakdom here that we wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of Boris and Earthless and Pearls & Brass. And ol' Jimi Hendrix for that matter. Of course, if you're already into TC, we need only say that this new disc is another slab of dizzy distorted genius from them.
Oh yeah, if you're partial to Earthless in particular, by the time you're in the middle of the 22 minute "Unnamed Wholeness", the second track of The Quintessential, you'll have a new favorite band. Those into Tokyo Flashbacking acts like LSD-march and Up-Tight might think so too.
But then, surprise! While most of the album is all electric and instrumental, the fifth and final track is a strummed acoustic number, melodic and gentle, with stoned effected vocals and pretty guitar pickin', like Led Zep in the sunshine on the backporch getting baked. Really nice!
Latest chunk of heaviness from the band, not the actress. This time the Texans tackle a classic tune by Lungfish, letting it sprawl across both sides �of a seven inch, fading out halfway through, and fading back in on the flipside, a la "Freebird". TC were wise to not emulate the sound of Lungfish, instead choosing �to transform the song into their own, turning a stripped down repetitive dronejam into a blown out stoner metal Southern rock groove, crunchy riffs, thick swells of Deep Purple style organ, wild squalls of wah guitar, super distorted and heavy, with leads all over the place. The A side is all instrumental, the guitar kicking up some serious shit, the band definitely expanding on the Lungfish original.
The flip side fades in and finally the vocals kick in, and again, good idea to not shoot for the moon, as it would be a tall order to try for Daniel Higgs feral yowl, so instead, it's more of a groovy rock wail that goes from smooth and melodic to raw and raspy, well in keeping with the music underneath. The band work it pretty hard, rocking out, but never losing sight of that original looped Lungfish arrangement, until finally slipping into a tripped out mellow outro. Nice!
Pressed on thick white vinyl. Housed in a super deluxe hand screened thick black cardstock sleeve.
The Moons At Your Door is a literary anthology curated by David Tibet / Current 93, featuring many of the pieces of horror fiction, supernatural tales, visionary prophecy, and religious scripture that have influenced him and his work since he was a young lad. He does include some horror classics from MR James, WW Jacobs, Count Stenback, and Thomas Ligoti (an occasional collaborator with Current 93 on a couple of the more frightening albums of the recent C93 era) as well as a rare piece of fiction from Aleister Crowley. Tibet has also translated portions of The Thunder: Perfect Mind, a Gnostic poem written originally in Coptic and laying the groundwork for one of C93's best albums, that being Thunder Perfect Mind. The rest of the authors include Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood, DK Broster, AM Burrage, RW Chambers, Elizabeth Gaskell, LA Lewis, Arthur Machen, Guy De Maupassant, Perrault, Thomas De Quincey, Saki, and HR Wakefield. Over 450 pages of the macabre, the creepy, and the hallucinatory!
While these two have been collaborating in their two outfits (Current 93 and Nurse With Wound) for nearly two decades, conjuring up "menstrual minstrals" for Current 93 and nightmarish dadaism for Nurse With Wound, the duo occasionally records outside of the agendas of their groups. This is the third such collaboration, with two tracks of blistering noise devolving into throbbing drones and two tracks of mutant psychedelia with some help from Nick Soloman (Bevis Frond).
At the risk of alienating some of the other amazing records we've been loving and listening to non-stop, we might just have to proclaim this disc our new favorite. Cuz, man, do we miss the good ol' math rock days. Or post rock days, whatever you want to call them. That brief period, when there were instrumental (or mostly instrumental) bands everywhere, each offering up super complex tangled chunks of calculus-rhythmed indie jangle. Guitars intertwined into gorgeous harmonies and splintering into jagged melodic shards. Drums battering out impossibly intricate beats, the bass slithering around and within, supporting and propelling, but always laced with killer pop hooks and amazing minor key melodies. Bands like�Polvo, Pitchblende, Table, Breadwinner, Dazzling Killmen, Bitch Magnet, Rodan, Crain, June Of 44, they just don't make bands like that anymore... or do they?
Tic Code, from Portland Oregon sound like they just got sucked up from 1995 and transplanted in 2007, with all their mathy chops intact. Every song here is dense and catchy and weird and rocking. The opener is all Don Caballero ultra complex spazz out. The guitars super dizzying and slippery, over a relentlessly chugging groove, that at one point slips into an almost jig, and then it's back into a hyper rhythmic math jam. The second track is more moody and propulsive, more post than math, the guitars lilting and ringing out, the drums loping lazily, super summer afternoon...
The rest of the record is all over the math map, leaning heavily on the heavy, more chaotic side of things, the drummer destroying, the guitars tangled up wildly around the drums, every song a gorgeous avalanche of sound...
Some�of our other favorites are�the weird melancholy almost Goblin-esque�"The Second Stanza Of The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza" with it's epic sweeping chords and haunting melodies, and the Yes-on-steroids of "Swedish Fish", with more killer dual guitar dueling culminating in an explosive freaked out free for all sonic squall... fuck it, they're all amazing.�This band is just so great, and sound so modern and old school at the same time.
Screw this whole post rock metal hybrid movement everyone is so hot for, we say: bring back the MATH!!!
The Tides made a miraculous journey last year from the reject pile of a very shortsighted local music magazine into the loving arms of aQuarius where it quickly became a unanimous favorite and a big seller. Taking all the things we love about this new post rock / dirge metal hybrid that has been kicking our asses, Pelican, Isis, Minsk, Conifer, Mare and the like, and subtly twisting it into something all their own. Where as the last Tides record alternated between rhythmic moodiness and metallic bombast, From Silence manages to be a little less overtly heavy, and a lot more moody and brooding, dark and dolorous, with slow subtle grooves and warm washes of hypnotic dreaminess, basically just good old post rock minus the metal. Although the metal is still indeed present, just in very subtle ways, more felt than heard, informing the songs and the riffs, giving the music a sort of ominous, sharp edge, lurking just below the surface. However, fear not, for the final 11 minute track is apparently where Tides had been keeping all the metal riffing missing from the first two tracks. What starts as a spacious swoonsome jam, all downtuned guitars, softly strummed, shuffling drums and wide open expanses of swooshing ambience, erupts about halfway through into a thoroughly chugging pummel, crunchy and lurching, pounding and swaying like a much groovier Neurosis before blissing out into a washed out psychedelic drift that threatens to float away completely before the hammer falls again and that gorgeously chugging riff returns to lay waste to any and all in its way.
We love post rock. There. We said it. And we certainly love when our post rock is delivered with a healthy dose of metallic crunch! And indeed, there's been a bit of a post rock resurgence around these parts lately, from regular old post rock instrumental rhythmic workouts to massive metallic onslaughts, and everything in between. Needless to say we're digging every minute of it. So along comes a band called Tides, whose particularly epic and excellent brand of metallic post rock comes to us in a rather roundabout way. A friend of ours works for a magazine that has a VERY narrow stylistic focus. And we do mean VERY. So anything sent to the magazine that falls even slightly outside this focus ends up in what is lovingly referred to as the reject box. And this dutiful friend goes through the reject box and discovers and delivers to us gem after gem, whose only reasons for being cast into this box of rejection seems to be wholly unique and original attempts at music making. Whether it's too metal, not punk enough, too weird... whatever it is that keeps those folks from listening to something tends to be precisely what makes us LOVE IT. Thus we have Tides. A mysterious instrumental outfit that explores similar sonic territory as Isis, Pelican, Conifer and the like. Not at all what you'd expect from a label called Teenage Disco Bloodbath. Dirge-y fuzzy stoner grooves, huge undulating riffs with wailing keening melodies, majestic and mournful, relentless and epic, often splintering into stretches of blissy tripped out space rock, and sublime dreamy interludes of subtle drumming and acoustic guitar, slow building and gorgeously propulsive. All stretched over a framework of murky, moody post rock mesmer. Totally hypnotic, completely rocking and intensely emotional. Definitely one of our new favorites. Fans of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican, Circle, Old Man Gloom, Conifer, and all things post rock, metal and beyond should definitely check this out.
Super technical, brutal and melodic black/death metal with a slight industrial tinge. Lots of keyboards, blast beats, churning downtuned riffs, Emperor-ish guitar melodies and howled/growled vocals. Nothing earth shatteringly original but still really good. This is the kind of stuff my housemate Erik goes crazy for. So if you dig In Flames, Soilwork, late era Carcass, and that sort of thing, this is right up your alley.
In the world of quietly melodic experimental electronica, I seem to be the designated AQ reviewer / expert, and that's fine, because I like this world, which is peopled by such relatively popular acts as Boards of Canada, Mouse on Mars, To Rococo Rot,
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For the last eight years this German group, featuring members of The Notwist and Village of Savoonga, have been putting out solid records of dub/jazz/electronica-post rock which has made them come to be regarded as sort of the German little brothers of Tortoise. This release features a new 19 minute track plus a dvd filled with videos and live performances. The new song is one of their blissed out high in the sky traveling through clouds and sun while exploring the outer limits of free-jazz minus the skronk for a very pretty and well played addition to their catalog.
German jazzlovin' post-rockers (some of whom are also in Village of Savoonga, so you know this is good) Tied & Tickled Trio relinquish compositional control to a few of their friends on this eight-song remix album and the results are surprisingly great. Much like the Aerial M remix album of a couple years back (which Tied & Ticked Trio was a part of), this album fits very snugly in the rest of the band's normal catalog. All of the rich electronics are still intact and the rhythms are never harder than the originals. The biggest difference might be the attention to craft. Where T&TT tends to polish everything to a perfect sphere, these remixes offer some slightly more reckless takes on their formula of fusion electro-jazz. Snippets of bandmates talking in their native German tongue and scraps of out-takes are seamlessly blended into many of these tracks. For anyone who has not given this amazing band a chance, now is the time. And this is just as good a place to start as any.
Tortoise's German counterpart are back with their fifth album. It's a dark, moody instrumental beauty, a languid blending of dub, post-rock and jazz with a prominence of exotica chimes. Perhaps leaning a bit heavier on the former than usual, which draws them more into the company of such contemporary electronic dub luminaries as Twilight Circus Dub Sound System and Massive Attack.
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This German group, with members hailing from the Kollaps/Hausmusik label core (especially Village of Savoonga and Potatomai), the Tied + Tickled Trio return with their second record of dark and tweaked jazz. This time it's much heavier on the jazz, sounding downright traditional at times.
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Sasha Frere Jones of Ui likes this band so much he released it on his own label, and comparisons with Ui, in fact, are not too far from the mark, although these Germans also have a lot in common with the murky, rhythmic world of Village of Savoonga and the rest of the Hausmusik scene. Recommended.
Laser Eyes is the third ep release from Bay Area shoegaze trio, Tied To The Branches and is fast becoming our favorite one. Members, Brad DerManouelian, (who runs the new label, Sleep Genius, which also just released the last Chasms 12" we sold a ton of recently), soundscape artist and aQ fave Marc Manning, and Justin Wasterlain, really rev up the distortion and reverb here, hearkening back to bands like Loop, Flying Saucer Attack and the Jesus and Mary Chain, but with their own skillful knack for writing strong memorable songs with driving tempos. Ghostly vocals and fluid bass lines pierce through the thick and luscious wall of sound the trio create to form a speedball of heavy somnolence, invoking a world of nightmarish sleepwalking hallucination. Amazingly, this was engineered by Don Pyle of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet fame (you know, the creators of the Kids In The Hall theme!), and listening closely there is a hint of twangy surf-rock buried under all the topcoat layers of distortion and reverb, but TTTB are no revivalists. Rather, they are carving their own homegrown niche within a larger heavy shoegaze-psych framework. While this ep will be available to the general public as a digital only release, the band has given aQuarius an exclusive but limited physical cd-r version just for our customers, so act fast on this one. It's so good!
What an awesome new band from right here in San Francisco. Some of you might remember how much we raved about Marc Manning's self released cd-r from last year. A dark, doomy and rustic bedroom excursion that left such an impact on us. Tied To The Branches finds Manning teamed up with his longtime partner, Brad DerManouelian and Justin Wasterlain to create some of the most captivating and inpactful, sludgy and dreamy pop that we could imagine. The sound is like this awesome combination of slowcore legends Low if they added languid synths and drum machines into their mix, while playing interpretations of demos by The Cure, The Chills, Codeine, and The Clean. The songs have a drifty and dirgy disposition that evoke in us such a satisfying daydreamy shoegaze state of mind.
While there has been no shortage of shoegaze inspired bands as of late, so many of them are tapping much more into the polished and glossy side of the genre, so it's so nice to hear a group channeling some of that sound from a much more primitive and DIY ethic. In ways the songs make us think of Slowdive's Pygmalion recorded in a dark and dusty garage. It's one of those records we could see being a 'pop' favorite of folks who usually are into really dark and even metallic sounds, and it could be the weird and sludgy exception for folks who usually are into cleaner and more peppy lo-fi pop. The five songs on Light Of Day, It's OK, clock in at just under half an hour, and are all filled with such understated beauty and an undeniable integrity. So fucking good!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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We're such suckers for inventive / over the top packaging, and this super limited 'box set' from beloved local shoegazers Tied To The Branches pushes all our crazy packaging buttons, and it's not just the packaging here, this special release also collects EVERYTHING they've ever recorded, the two cd-r's we've reviewed and listed, but also a third record we never even got, as well as a bunch of demos AND a bunch of videos. All of these goodies are contained in a cool oversized pill shaped 8gb USB thumbdrive, and that drive comes housed in a classic orange pill bottle with white twist off lid, complete with TTTB prescription label, a TTTB button, and of course plenty of cotton. It's so cool! But sadly, CRAZY limited, as in only TEN copies were made, of which we got just EIGHT. So if you want one, best be quick, cuz these will be gone in a flash!
Here's a couple reviews of the two Tied To The Branches we've reviewed. First, the most recent ep Laser Eyes, TTTB's which might be our favorite from this SF shoegaze trio. Members, Brad DerManouelian, (who runs the new label, Sleep Genius, which also just released the last Chasms 12" we sold a ton of recently), soundscape artist and aQ fave Marc Manning, and Justin Wasterlain, really rev up the distortion and reverb here, hearkening back to bands like Loop, Flying Saucer Attack and the Jesus and Mary Chain, but with their own skillful knack for writing strong memorable songs with driving tempos. Ghostly vocals and fluid bass lines pierce through the thick and luscious wall of sound the trio create to form a speedball of heavy somnolence, invoking a world of nightmarish sleepwalking hallucination. Amazingly, this was engineered by Don Pyle of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet fame (you know, the creators of the Kids In The Hall theme!), and listening closely there is a hint of twangy surf-rock buried under all the topcoat layers of distortion and reverb, but TTTB are no revivalists. Rather, they are carving their own homegrown niche within a larger heavy shoegaze-psych framework.
Also included here is the first release we'd heard from these guys, the Light Of Day, It's OK record, which features some of the most captivating and inpactful, sludgy and dreamy pop that we could imagine. The sound is like this awesome combination of slowcore legends Low if they added languid synths and drum machines into their mix, while playing interpretations of demos by The Cure, The Chills, Codeine, and The Clean. The songs have a drifty and dirgy disposition that evoke in us such a satisfying daydreamy shoegaze state of mind.
While there has been no shortage of shoegaze inspired bands as of late, so many of them are tapping much more into the polished and glossy side of the genre, so it's so nice to hear a group channeling some of that sound from a much more primitive and DIY ethic. In ways the songs make us think of Slowdive's Pygmalion recorded in a dark and dusty garage. It's one of those records we could see being a 'pop' favorite of folks who usually are into really dark and even metallic sounds, and it could be the weird and sludgy exception for folks who usually are into cleaner and more peppy lo-fi pop. Such understated beauty and an undeniable integrity. So fucking good!
And as mentioned above, a third record, demos, unreleased tracks, videos and more more more!
New record from the duo of Mani Neumeier (of Guru Guru fame) and Luigi Archetti, features guest Dieter Moebius of Cluster.
